Christmas Message

Christmas Message - page 2

Written by Paul Donovan

So, why is Rudolph so important to me at Christmas?  Well, Christmas time in my home always included a few people who were not part of my family.  My mother always made a point of inviting friends who had no family to go to and often would invite someone that just wouldn’t be wanted by too many other people.  I remember that when we began this tradition we all argued that Christmas should be a family time and that outsiders would harm the spirit of the season.  In typical fashion my mother taught us the proper spirit and our guests always made the celebrations even more wonderful.  (It’s interesting that these same people ended up at my house on a pretty regular basis – not just Christmas.) That is the message of Rudolph; the misfit toys found homes, Hermie and Yukon saved everyone from the snow monster and even the bad guy was reformed and found a place. Of course, as we all know, Rudolph’s nose became the cause of his fame instead of his derision. 

We are all used to hearing about giving food or money at Christmas and we start to feel good when our checkbooks alleviate our consciences for another year.  But the practical reality of our lives is that there are many around us who do not have a place, do not feel loved or wanted and our checkbooks don’t do much for them.  If we take the time to look around at the people in our lives, maybe even in our own families, who are somehow on the fringe, who may experience a different kind of poverty, and make an effort to reach out to them, we may discover that we are the ones who have grown richer and the abominable snow monsters in our own lives may somehow be reformed.